Edward Petherbridge Movies
A misleading title and a different type of performance from Hugh Grant are two of the offbeat features of An Awfully Big Adventure. Virginal theatre fanatic Stella (Georgina Cates), who speaks with her dead mother by phone, joins a theatrical troupe in 1947 England headed by manipulative director Meredith Potter (Grant). Stella quickly falls for Potter, but he doesn't return her affections, driving her into the arms of the troupe's arrogant star, P.L. O'Hara (Alan Rickman). O'Hara eventually takes Stella's virginity, although she secretly remains devoted to Potter. More secrets of the troupe are revealed at the story's climax, although nothing is really resolved to any of the characters' satisfaction. Not quite a satire and not quite a drama, An Awfully Big Adventure is occasionally mean-spirited and frequently dour, which may just be a result of its subject matter. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alan Rickman, Hugh Grant, (more)
- 1990
Previously filmed (and truncated) in 1932, Eugene O'Neill's marathon 1928 Pulitzer-winning stage drama Strange Interlude was adapted for television in 1988. Broadcast in three 90-minute installments, the nine-act play covers some 25 years in the life of New England woman Nina Leeds (Glenda Jackson). When her fiance is killed in World War I, Nina becomes a nurse in a veterans hospital, where she makes the acquaintance of Dr. Ned Darrell (David Dukes) and farmer's son Sam Evans (Ken Howard). She chooses to marry the steadfast but dull Evans, then is advised by his mother (Rosemary Harris) that there is a streak of insanity in the family. Desperate for an heir, Nina sleeps with Dr. Darrell...and so it goes for the next quarter century, with Nina's secret admirer Charlie Marsden (Edward Petheridge) anguishing on the sidelines. The reason Strange Interlude takes 4 1/2 hours is because of O'Neill's "interior monologues," wherein the characters pause every so often to speak out their thoughts for the benefit of the audience (but not for each other). Strange Interlude was first telecast in the US on three consecutive segments of PBS' American Playhouse in January and February of 1988. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Based on the novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, this made-for-TV mystery features two of her best-known characters: Harriet Vane and Lord Peter Wimsey. Novelist Vane (Harriet Walter) is vacationing after being cleared on charges of murder when she stumbles across the body of a man who has been killed on the beach. The only footprints in the sand besides her own are those of the victim, and Vane is at a loss to explain what has happened. Finding herself a homicide suspect again, Vane calls upon her friend Lord Wimsey (Edward Petherbridge) to help solve the crime, and the two soon find they've stumbled upon a plot involving murder, suicide, and political radicals. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Based on a novel by author and BBC darling Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison chronicles the adventures of Lord Peter Whimsey (Edward Petherbridge) and Harriet Vane (Harriet Walter), a novelist and detective who does an excellent job of getting under Whimsey's skin. The blurred line between their personal and work relationship rivals that of The X-Files' infamously tense crimefighting duo, and the partners find themselves trying (though not necessarily consciously) to solve more than the mysterious crime unraveling before them. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide
Shakespeare's tragedy, made for British television, is given a full-blooded rendition here with the great Laurence Olivier in the title role and a stellar cast to support him, in the tale of a king torn apart by the ambition and treachery within his family and by his own pride. ~ Mark Hockley, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Laurence Olivier, Anna Calder-Marshall, (more)
- 1976
Steed (Patrick MacNee) Purdey (Joanna Lumley) and Gambit (Gareth Hunt) go undercover in one of the seamier neighborhoods of London. The Reason? Several prominent governmnet officials, including a friend of Steed's, have turned up dead. It turns out that someone is using disguised derelicts to replace the dead officials. The real trouble begins when the identical doubles for Gambit and Purdey show up (though it does permit Purdey the plum acting assignment of doubling for her own double). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Patrick Macnee, Gareth Hunt, (more)
